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Thanks for this. Currently fighting the Lost Messiah lawsuit in two courtrooms. If that is even possible at this juncture will depend upon my ability to raise money to continue the fight… or go it alone.
Another scam. We can’t raise money to fight a litigation but they raise money for every possible thing they can think of all the while crying poverty. It is astounding.
I see that you no longer refer to yourself as a “wife” on your fundraiser. Has he finally given you a “get”? For his sake, hopefully he does not “get” your debt in the divorce … 😀
It’s so flattering that you spend so much time digging into a blogger’s personal life. One might almost think that you have been paid to harass the blogger or get some sort of pleasure out of it. There’s something to be said for marrying the love of your life with the education, knowledge, clarity of life and personal consent of a willing participation of a life together. Not sure your community (or alternatively that of the community you defend) knows a whole lot about all of that.
Former Brooklyn DA Charles “Joe” Hynes died today at 83. The Daily News piece on him features his prosecution of a racial attack in Howard Beach years ago but makes no mention of his coddling of Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox fraudsters, child molesters and other scum with beards and black hats. He was a prominent target of the Failed Messiah blog and deservedly so. The rebbeim had him bought and paid for with their bloc-voting sheeple helping to reelect him year after year. Rest uncomfortably, Mr. Hynes.
On June 21, 2017, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) with the National Labor Relations Board determined that Brius’ Four Seasons Healthcare and Wellness Center (North Hollywood, CA) violated the National Labor Relations Act when it asked its employees to sign an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) agreement as a condition of their employment.
On September 26, 2017, Jeffrey Aronson, a former nursing home administrator at two Brius nursing homes, has filed a wrongful termination complaint against the nursing home corporation and its owner Shlomo Rechnitz…Aronson was put on probation and later fired after he alerted Rechnitz that the facility he ran, and which Rockport provided “professional services” to, had been inflating its staffing figures in reports to state regulators.
I have read your web page for many years. As a former employee of the Esformes’ in Miami, FL I was always interested in what the rest of the community was saying about Morris and Philip. I recently resigned after being in their employment since 1997. I provided a 2-week notice and was escorted out of one of Morris’s facilities 2 days later. I was told, “Mr. E. is really upset”. I was then notified that I would receive 1 day’s pay; this after 20 years of dedication and working very, very closely with Philip. Extremely disappointing.
Oy! The antisemites have prevailed! Sackcloth and ashes time! Sacrifice a few chickens! More tznius for the ladies!
Meanwhile the bitter irony of this is that, dirty politics aside, the Lamm-built residences are far better looking ones than most of those visible elsewhere in Bloomingburg, based on my most recent visit there this past February. The village which has come to look like something out of Appalachia is much in need of a revitalization but not at the cost of a hijacking of its government.
The real question is what that Lakewood boy was smuggling through Russia to get him locked up for months in jail. Everyone hails his return with singing and dancing but says nothing about what he did.
There is apparently much more about this story that is being covered up. I wonder whether criminal cases n Russia are available for research online. The kid was obviously smuggling something illegal and was caught but all you see on the frum websites is him being welcomed home as some kind of hero. This is precisely the mindset that gets so many people into trouble and also shows a complete disrespect for authority. No one wants their kid locked up in a Russian prison. I get that. But then have a little sense not to revel in such a public way about it. It only brings more attention to the story and begs the question about what the hell happened.
The rumor is Israel is that he had an entire suitcase full of cigarettes that he was smuggling into the US. Clearly illegal. And clearly he deserved punishment. Or at least not to be treated like a hero.
Shaya Lichtenstein secretly recorded some 70,000 conversations, including many with cops. Singing like a Chazzan
A crooked gun broker secretly made thousands of recordings of conversations with corrupt NYPD cops, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
The revelation likely will send shock waves through the department.
In a letter filed in Manhattan Federal Court, prosecutors said Alex (Shaya) Lichtenstein secretly recorded some 70,000 conversations, including many with cops.
In November, Lichtenstein pleaded guilty to bribing NYPD officers to obtain pistol licenses.
Lichtenstein saved the conversations to an e-mail account, “many of them contemporaneous memorialization of dealings of questionable legality with members of the NYPD,” according to the letter written by Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Bell.
“During our initial review of those recordings, we learned that some of these calls implicated at least one of the defendants in this case.”
The feds said they also got “material” from the phones of Jeremy Reichberg, a Brooklyn businessman who is accused of doling out gifts to senior cops, including trips to the Super Bowl, Brazil and China, sources said.
That material was not described in any more specifics.
Lichtenstein pleaded guilty on Nov. 10 to offering a cop $6,000 in exchange for an expedited gun permit.
“I had a good and friendly relationship with New York City police officers. During these years, I gave police officers in the Licensing Division things of value, including money, knowing that by giving them those things, the officers would do me favors, including expediting gun license applications,” Lichtenstein, 45, said.
Sgt. David Villanueva is accused of accepting gifts in exchange for helping speed up weapons permits.
Police Officer Richard Ochetal, formerly of the gun licensing unit, pleaded guilty to charges relating to the probe — and is cooperating with cops, the feds said in June.
Deputy Chief Michael Harrington and Deputy Inspector James Grant were also arrested for allegedly acting as “cops on call” for Reichberg and another wealthy de Blasio donor, Jona Rechnitz.
I would encourage all of you to send an email to the next Secretary of Education (probably Betsy De Vos) to complain about the inadequate secular education being received by many Ultra Orthodox students especially the boys. Google Chaim Levin and the education he never received. It is time for this scandal to be addressed at the highest levels.
Anon, not only will DeVos complain about secular education but it looks like she has the ears of the ultra-Orthodox community which will be receiving vouchers.
Betsy is a big on public money for private education. She comes from a very wealthy and politically powerful family and could care less about the proles.
The fall of Black Elk Energy began in New York City nearly a decade ago, with a meeting, a handshake and a loan.
Looking back, those were halcyon days for John Hoffman, founder of the Houston oil and gas company – before an explosion tore through an offshore rig and killed three workers, before federal investigators accused the hedge fund that made the loan of bilking investors, and before one of his top executives turned on him.
Hoffman, forced out of Black Elk in 2014, is now at the helm of a new company, and barely keeping the doors open. Black Elk is bankrupt and facing criminal charges in a federal case awaiting trial. And Hoffman’s one-time backer, Platinum Partners, is under federal indictment, accused of pillaging Black Elk and the hedge fund’s investors.
Last month, federal investigators arrested six Platinum executives and the man who replaced Hoffman as CEO, alleging they overvalued Black Elk’s assets, concealed “severe cash flow problems,” extracted high management fees and illegally diverted to Platinum more than $95 million owed to creditors holding Black Elk’s bonds. Platinum attorneys did not return calls seeking comment.
“I didn’t think (Platinum) had the guts to take it all,” Hoffman said in an interview. “I thought they’d take a large share. Ends up they took it all.”
The rise and fall of Black Elk Energy highlights the risks of the oil and gas business, which demands piles of cash that can quickly vanish through bad luck, bad planning, bad management or all three. It also reveals a shadow banking system that lends at double-digit interest rates to firms desperate for capital and has few qualms about gutting companies when they don’t perform.
BLACK ELK TIMELINE
MONEY TRAIL
2003 Investment manager Mark Nordlicht starts the hedge fund Platinum Partners in New York.
2007 Engineer John Hoffman and a partner open Black Elk Energy in Houston.
2008 Hoffman and partner fly to New York looking for capital; meet Platinum executives.
2009 Black Elk buys 35 oil fields on 71,000 acres from the Houston company W&T Offshore for $30 million, the first major purchase of many to come.
2011 Black Elk ends year with 240 oil production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico on 300,000 acres, producing about 14,500 barrels of oil and gas per day.
2012 Workers welding on a company platform in the Gulf ignite fuel vapors, leading to a string of exploding tanks and killing three.
2013 Black Elk signs drilling contracts worth about $90 million, but Platinum reneges on promises to send capital and Black Elk can’t pay the contractors.
2014 Renaissance Offshore, a Houston production company, buys Black Elk oil fields for $170 million; Platinum engineers a bondholders vote, federal investigators say, that diverts $95 million in proceeds to Platinum rather than contractors and bondholders.
2015 Federal prosecutors file involuntary manslaughter and other charges stemming from the Gulf explosion against Black Elk and contractor Grand Isle Shipyards. Black Elk files for bankruptcy.
2016 The U.S. attorney of the Eastern District of New York announces the indictment of six Platinum executives and one Black Elk executive, alleging they overvalued Black Elk assets, concealed “severe cash flow problems,” extracted high management fees and illegally diverted to Platinum money owed to bondholders.
Hoffman now says he had no idea of the financial disaster he was walking into when he flew from Houston to New York in 2008 and made a deal with Platinum. He thought he had found a deep-pocketed partner to fuel his vision for Black Elk at a time when loans were hard to come by. Even after disaster struck an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico, Platinum seemed to have the money and confidence to right Black Elk and put it back on a path to success.
But one day in 2014, Hoffman got suspicious pretty quickly.
Knocking on doors
The following account is based on interviews, financial filings and court records in civil and criminal cases:
Hoffman started Black Elk in 2007, raising money from private investors and using the cash to buy shallow-water oil fields in the Gulf for bottom-barrel prices from companies that no longer wanted them. Black Elk reworked the old wells with updated technology and boosted production.
Not a year later, the U.S. economy crashed, and oil prices with it. In late 2008, Hoffman and co-founder James Hagemeier flew to New York City to nail down capital. Over the course of two months, they knocked on the doors of at least 50 investment firms.
“It was a tough time to look for funds,” Hoffman said.
Finally, a middleman suggested the two meet the executives of the New York hedge fund Platinum Partners.
Platinum was founded in 2003 by Mark Nordlicht, who started as a young trader in the pits of the New York Cotton Exchange and opened two other investment firms before Platinum. He and Platinum gained a reputation for investing in risky companies and returning double-digit profits for investors.
Platinum offered Black Elk two loans together worth about $50 million – at 20 percent interest. But Platinum’s business model didn’t just loan money to desperate companies. The loans came with “kickers,” or clauses that gave Platinum growing ownership stakes in the firms over the lives of the loans.
“We were new and so small,” Hoffman recalled. “We didn’t draw much interest from the bigger players. Platinum seemed like a good fit.”
In 2009, Black Elk began a buying spree with Platinum’s cash, later supplemented by $150 million raised in a bond sale. By 2011, it owned leases on 300,000 acres in the Gulf of Mexico that produced about 14,500 barrels of oil and gas per day, according to securities filings.
“All I know was when we had an acquisition, Mark Nordlicht said, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ ” Hoffman said. “And he always had the money.”
By 2012, Black Elk, with a market value that Platinum estimated at nearly $300 million, was the largest asset in Platinum’s most successful fund, then valued at $700 million. Then it all unraveled.
In November 2012, workers welding on a Black Elk platform ignited fuel vapors, leading to a string of exploding tanks. The explosion killed three workers, injured at least two others and spilled hundreds of gallons of oil into the Gulf.
The fall out was immediate for Black Elk’s finances. Oil production fell. Legal fees mounted. (In 2015, federal prosecutors filed involuntary manslaughter and other criminal charges against Black Elk and contractor Grand Isle Shipyards, which both pleaded not guilty. Hoffman was not charged individually.)
BUSINESS
It’s official. Whataburger has been dubbed the winner of taste over In-N-Out and Shake Shack, according to BuzzFeed . Buzzfeed dubs Whataburger better than In-N-Out, Shake Shack Houston Salsa Congress workshop participant Harrison Bohanan follows instructor Franklin Liranzo’s dance moves to warm up before a class Saturday in Houston. Houston Salsa Congress attracts veterans seeking stress relief A group of economists who believe in the thesis of “cash only, no strings” founded GiveDirectly, just give cash, unconditionally, to poor adults in Africa. Kenya is one of the main countries it operates in. In eliminating poverty, cold hard cash goes a lot further than Cattle are inspected for ticks near Laredo. Experts are trying to pinpoint how the ticks ended up 110 miles north of the border. Spread of fever tick spooks Texas cattle industry Indian airline SpiceJet buying 100 Boeing 737 MAX jets Consumers look over toys for sale before Christmas in Harare, Zimbabwe. A cash crunch is so severe that banks are capping customer withdrawals at $150 a week. Cash is king in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe
Black Elk’s lenders reduced lines of credit and demanded more collateral. Black Elk started selling assets to raise cash.
Still, in December 2012, Hoffman flew to New York to present Black Elk’s growth strategy to Nordlicht and another Platinum executive, David Levy. Platinum promised as much as $120 million in capital for the company’s 2013 drilling campaign, Hoffman said, and Black Elk signed drilling contracts worth about $90 million with energy services companies.
Four months later, Platinum reneged on its pledge, leaving Black Elk unable to pay the contractors.
“It was just such a deep hole,” Hoffman said. “We couldn’t dig out of it.”
‘This is code red’
By the start of 2014, Black Elk had a new chief financial officer, Jeffrey Shulse, a lawyer and accountant whom Hoffman had hired a few years earlier to run a well-plugging company created by Black Elk. Platinum pushed Hoffman hard to make Shulse the CFO of Black Elk, Hoffman said.
Shulse wanted Hoffman out of the company. He wouldn’t comment for this story but said in a court deposition that Black Elk was ineptly managed, spending money it didn’t have on luxuries like boats, helicopters and cigar rooms at the office. Hoffman began secretly tracking and reading Shulse’s every email, Shulse said in the deposition; Shulse hired investigators to see if Hoffman had bugged his office.
Black Elk was by then effectively insolvent, federal investigators said.
Platinum, however, owned a $98 million stake in Black Elk, about 76 percent of the company, according to Hoffman’s files. And Platinum had a plan to get as much money back from the sinking oil company. It ordered Shulse to find a buyer willing to pay $170 million for Black Elk’s seven most valuable oil fields.
Shulse, meanwhile, was secretly trying to get Hoffman’s job. In March 2014, Shulse sent an email to Levy asking to take over as Black Elk CEO – and, according to the indictment, get paid $1 million from sales of the Black Elk’s assets.
“I want to be aligned with Platinum and friends of Platinum,” Shulse wrote in an email seized by investigators. “What’s good for them is good for me.”
Shulse found a buyer, the Houston production company Renaissance Offshore, for the Black Elk holdings. But Platinum still had a problem. The terms of Black Elk’s bonds required the company to pay off bondholders before it did anything else with the money.
Platinum was having its own problems. No longer generating double-digit returns, investors were pulling out money, and Platinum was barely able to pay redemption requests to investors, according to the indictment. Failure to cash in on Black Elk assets would “be the end of the fund,” Nordlicht wrote in an email. “This is code red,” he later said.
By May 2014, Platinum executives decided they had to persuade bondholders to let Black Elk use the sale proceeds for other purposes than paying off the bonds. And that change required a vote of the bondholders.
Hoffman didn’t like the move. But he didn’t oppose it, either. What bondholder “with half a brain,” Hoffman thought, would agree to give up his rights?
Platinum, again, had it figured out. It began buying Black Elk bonds – so that it could vote to pay itself, according to the indictment.
Platinum executives leaked information about Black Elk’s finances, driving down the value of the bonds, which they then bought at healthy discounts, federal prosecutors alleged. By April 2014, Platinum owned $99 million of the original $150 million in bonds, but concealed its ownership, investigators said, by selling all but $18 million to four investment funds that Platinum controlled.
With Platinum and its entities holding most of the bonds, the proposal to spend the cash from the oil field sales as the company saw fit was easily approved.
Ripping TVs off walls
On Aug. 18, 2014, Platinum sent an email to Shulse directing him to wire $70 million to Platinum. Two days later, Black Elk sent another $25 million from the Renaissance sales to Platinum.
The next Monday, Hoffman showed up at Black Elk. The doors were locked and office vacated, he said, and he had to call the building superintendent to get in. What was left of the company had moved in with Shulse’s well service company, which was by then also controlled by Platinum.
Not a week later, Shulse, now CEO, held something of a yard sale in the old office. Afterwards, former Black Elk employees said they went back inside the building. Computers, refrigerators and office furniture were all gone. Trash littered the floor. TVs yanked out of the walls, mounts and all, left fist-sized holes in the drywall.
“What a disgraceful way to go out,” Hoffman said.
By then, Black Elk had laid off about 100 workers, most of its staff.
On Sept. 11, 2014, Platinum authorized Shulse to pay himself a $275,000 bonus. Platinum executives, meanwhile, were paying themselves as well, according to the indictment. From 2012 to 2015, even as Black Elk crashed and Platinum scraped for cash, executives consistently told investors the fund was returning double-digit profits, justifying charges of as much as 20 percent in management and incentive fees, or $111 million in total over the four years, federal authorities alleged.
Many of Black Elk’s contractors were never paid. In August 2015, some filed a petition to liquidate Black Elk through Chapter 7 bankruptcy and use the proceeds to pay creditors. By the following June, Platinum didn’t have enough cash to pay investors trying to pull their money out the Platinum fund.
On Dec. 19, the U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of New York announced the indictment of seven on fraud and conspiracy charges: Platinum executives Uri Landesman, Joseph Sanfilippo, Joseph Mann, Daniel Small, Levy and Nordlicht as well as Shulse. They all pleaded not guilty.
U.S. Attorney Robert L. Capers, whose office investigated the case, estimated that investors in Platinum’s fund lost $1 billion.
Shulse’s attorney, F. Andino Reynal, said Shulse was told what to do by Platinum.
“He didn’t commit a crime here,” Reynal said. “I’m very confident that once the jury has heard all the facts, they’ll determine he’s not guilty.”
Hoffman’s hands still shake when talking about Platinum. His cheeks still redden. The scandal has hamstrung his new company, P3 Petroleum, which can’t raise money to grow. The company pumps about 50 barrels a day and employs seven workers.
“We’ve been going at it for more than two years now,” Hoffman said. “We don’t have a lot to show for it.”
LOSTMESSIAH 
Click to access 20-10377-CV0.pdf
Justice Toussaint could learn a little bit from the last portion of this 5th Cir opinion.
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Thank you. Very grateful. Will take a look.
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https://nypost.com/2020/11/10/cuomo-signs-law-making-it-harder-to-file-lawsuits-to-stifle-free-speech/
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Thanks for this. Currently fighting the Lost Messiah lawsuit in two courtrooms. If that is even possible at this juncture will depend upon my ability to raise money to continue the fight… or go it alone.
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https://www.lohud.com/story/news/2020/08/06/state-sen-james-skoufis-opposes-clovewood-project-in-south-blooming-grove/3306645001/
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https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/2020/06/25/east-ramapo-allows-private-summer-camps-lease-schools-amid-shutdown/3256702001/
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https://nypost.com/2020/03/03/bronx-jewish-day-school-closes-for-suspected-coronavirus-case/
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https://www.nj.com/education/2020/02/we-need-stem-teachers-lakewood-yeshivas-say-5m-grant-will-help-pay-for-them.html
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https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-seddio-brooklyn-democrats-20200116-watssxmlorb35iaxgsfuoizkla-story.html
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Thank you for sending this along.
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https://dusiznies.blogspot.com/2019/07/lazer-scheiner-to-hold-fundraiser-for.html
$25,000.00 a ticket.
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Another scam. We can’t raise money to fight a litigation but they raise money for every possible thing they can think of all the while crying poverty. It is astounding.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-kushner-times-square-property-development/?srnd=premium
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Novartis site – not hard to guess the end game here.
https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/suffern/2019/04/25/suffern-novartis-property-sales-clouded-legal-claims/3560047002/
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Some truly wonderful blog posts on this web site , appreciate it for contribution.
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I see that you no longer refer to yourself as a “wife” on your fundraiser. Has he finally given you a “get”? For his sake, hopefully he does not “get” your debt in the divorce … 😀
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It’s so flattering that you spend so much time digging into a blogger’s personal life. One might almost think that you have been paid to harass the blogger or get some sort of pleasure out of it. There’s something to be said for marrying the love of your life with the education, knowledge, clarity of life and personal consent of a willing participation of a life together. Not sure your community (or alternatively that of the community you defend) knows a whole lot about all of that.
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Stop referring to yourself in the third person. It speaks volumes about your mental state.
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Don’t you have some welfare to steal?
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Here’s a tip, Julia. Keep your day job.
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Former Brooklyn DA Charles “Joe” Hynes died today at 83. The Daily News piece on him features his prosecution of a racial attack in Howard Beach years ago but makes no mention of his coddling of Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox fraudsters, child molesters and other scum with beards and black hats. He was a prominent target of the Failed Messiah blog and deservedly so. The rebbeim had him bought and paid for with their bloc-voting sheeple helping to reelect him year after year. Rest uncomfortably, Mr. Hynes.
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Total scum and no loss to the world.
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Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services
https://www.lohud.com/story/news/crime/2018/12/13/westchester-sex-trafficking-arrestFams/2300625002/
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https://www.lohud.com/story/news/education/2018/11/20/updated-private-school-guidelines-yehshivas-secular/2065552002/
Ramapo Board of Ed to be responsible for inspection of private schools – fox watching the hen house.
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Thanks for this.
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Scandal Rocks Lakewood: Lakewood paid township manager ‘hush money’ to stay silent, lawsuit alleges
https://www.app.com/story/news/2018/10/15/lakewood-nj-township-manager-hush-money-lawsuit/1646158002/
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SEASONS Kosher grocery chain has gone bankrupt… owes tens of millions of dollars to investors, suppliers, etc.
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Seabrook convicted on both counts
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Gone for good?
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SHLOMO RECHNITZ – https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/billionaire-sues-mobli-media-exaggerating-leonardo-dicaprios-10-investment-1093263
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you go to sleep for two months.
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Gertler sanctioned by US
Rubashkin Freed
Royal Commission reports
etc
etc
etc
‘We’re not going anywhere’
Merry Christmas!!!
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Yeshiva Program/Mazer School of Talmudic Studies Awards (For Excellence in Talmud):
Jona Rechnitz
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What a Talmudic scholar he was. Excuse me while I vomit.
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http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/343589/ex-prostitute-alleges-orthodox-businessmen-mistreated-her-on-mile-high-nypd/?attribution=tag-article-listing-3-headline
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http://nypost.com/2017/10/29/crooked-de-blasio-donor-lived-like-the-unofficial-king-of-nyc/
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http://nypost.com/2017/10/31/crooked-de-blasio-donor-once-wore-blackface/
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Disgraced Jonah Rechnitz…
http://nypost.com/2017/10/27/felon-who-says-he-bought-de-blasio-i-also-scored-hookers-for-cops/
http://nypost.com/2017/10/04/de-blasio-donor-angers-temple-goers-with-30k-donation/
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On June 21, 2017, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) with the National Labor Relations Board determined that Brius’ Four Seasons Healthcare and Wellness Center (North Hollywood, CA) violated the National Labor Relations Act when it asked its employees to sign an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) agreement as a condition of their employment.
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On September 26, 2017, Jeffrey Aronson, a former nursing home administrator at two Brius nursing homes, has filed a wrongful termination complaint against the nursing home corporation and its owner Shlomo Rechnitz…Aronson was put on probation and later fired after he alerted Rechnitz that the facility he ran, and which Rockport provided “professional services” to, had been inflating its staffing figures in reports to state regulators.
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Not sure you ever reported on this story:
Report: Shlomo Rechnitz invested millions in Madoff-like ponzi scheme
http://briuswatch.org/brius/report-shlomo-rechnitz-invested-millions-in-madoff-like-ponzi-scheme/
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https://www.vosizneias.com/283192/2017/10/26/kiryas-joel-ny-big-win-for-kj-as-appeals-court-shuts-down-challenge-to-water-pumping-plans/#comments
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http://nypost.com/2017/10/26/de-blasio-donors-shocking-testimony-100k-bought-me-the-mayor/
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Hello – anyone home?
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Yes. We are here. Thanks for checking in.
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PLATINUM PARTNERS WITNESS PROTECTION THE URI LANDESMAN FAMILY HAVE LEFT THEIR HOME,,,???????????,,,,,
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WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO WANTED TO FLEE,,,,,
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I have read your web page for many years. As a former employee of the Esformes’ in Miami, FL I was always interested in what the rest of the community was saying about Morris and Philip. I recently resigned after being in their employment since 1997. I provided a 2-week notice and was escorted out of one of Morris’s facilities 2 days later. I was told, “Mr. E. is really upset”. I was then notified that I would receive 1 day’s pay; this after 20 years of dedication and working very, very closely with Philip. Extremely disappointing.
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http://nypost.com/2017/08/02/why-ikea-edits-women-out-of-its-catalogs/
Ikea edits women out of its catalogs in two countries: Saudi Arabia and Israel. How very sad. Bad company, Israel.
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http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article163327088.html
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http://hudsonvalleynewsnetwork.com/2017/06/06/guilty-plea-conspiracy-corrupt-electoral-process-bloomingburg/
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Oy! The antisemites have prevailed! Sackcloth and ashes time! Sacrifice a few chickens! More tznius for the ladies!
Meanwhile the bitter irony of this is that, dirty politics aside, the Lamm-built residences are far better looking ones than most of those visible elsewhere in Bloomingburg, based on my most recent visit there this past February. The village which has come to look like something out of Appalachia is much in need of a revitalization but not at the cost of a hijacking of its government.
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If yo are a non Jew the security will not let you in. Talk about discrimination. Equal housing does not apply.
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What security? This isn’t a gated community as far as I can recall. Just attached houses in rows.
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Get out of jail free= Neiderman/ crooked politician’s. Just ask Nat Schlesinger.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/men-busted-swiping-270g-amex-fake-nyc-company-article-1.3289265
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*** BREAKING *** Rumors flying in Lakewood that major arrests underway for Medicaid fraud. No idea if true.
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Apparently true:
http://www.app.com/story/news/investigations/watchdog/2017/06/28/lakewood-welfare-fraud-arrests-continue/434666001/
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The real question is what that Lakewood boy was smuggling through Russia to get him locked up for months in jail. Everyone hails his return with singing and dancing but says nothing about what he did.
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do you have links?
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http://www.thelakewoodscoop.com/news/2017/06/video-photos-the-true-story-from-the-family-of-the-bachur-released-from-russia.html
There is apparently much more about this story that is being covered up. I wonder whether criminal cases n Russia are available for research online. The kid was obviously smuggling something illegal and was caught but all you see on the frum websites is him being welcomed home as some kind of hero. This is precisely the mindset that gets so many people into trouble and also shows a complete disrespect for authority. No one wants their kid locked up in a Russian prison. I get that. But then have a little sense not to revel in such a public way about it. It only brings more attention to the story and begs the question about what the hell happened.
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The rumor is Israel is that he had an entire suitcase full of cigarettes that he was smuggling into the US. Clearly illegal. And clearly he deserved punishment. Or at least not to be treated like a hero.
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Others say it was firearms. No idea what it actually was.
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We heard it was uncut diamonds. There are a lot of rumors.
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“armored piercing bullets”? are you kidding me?
See here…http://hefkervelt.blogspot.com/2017/06/tehillim-request.html#comment-form
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http://www.vosizneias.com/271479/2017/06/06/sullivan-county-ny-shalom-lamm-pleads-guilty-to-conspiracy-to-corrupt-the-electoral-process-in-bloomingburg/
HA!
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https://nypost.com/2017/04/21/rabbi-admits-to-stealing-millions-from-special-needs-school/
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http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/new-salvo-in-battle-over-upstate-chasidic-development/
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Shaya Lichtenstein secretly recorded some 70,000 conversations, including many with cops. Singing like a Chazzan
A crooked gun broker secretly made thousands of recordings of conversations with corrupt NYPD cops, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
The revelation likely will send shock waves through the department.
In a letter filed in Manhattan Federal Court, prosecutors said Alex (Shaya) Lichtenstein secretly recorded some 70,000 conversations, including many with cops.
In November, Lichtenstein pleaded guilty to bribing NYPD officers to obtain pistol licenses.
Lichtenstein saved the conversations to an e-mail account, “many of them contemporaneous memorialization of dealings of questionable legality with members of the NYPD,” according to the letter written by Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Bell.
“During our initial review of those recordings, we learned that some of these calls implicated at least one of the defendants in this case.”
The feds said they also got “material” from the phones of Jeremy Reichberg, a Brooklyn businessman who is accused of doling out gifts to senior cops, including trips to the Super Bowl, Brazil and China, sources said.
That material was not described in any more specifics.
Lichtenstein pleaded guilty on Nov. 10 to offering a cop $6,000 in exchange for an expedited gun permit.
“I had a good and friendly relationship with New York City police officers. During these years, I gave police officers in the Licensing Division things of value, including money, knowing that by giving them those things, the officers would do me favors, including expediting gun license applications,” Lichtenstein, 45, said.
Sgt. David Villanueva is accused of accepting gifts in exchange for helping speed up weapons permits.
Police Officer Richard Ochetal, formerly of the gun licensing unit, pleaded guilty to charges relating to the probe — and is cooperating with cops, the feds said in June.
Deputy Chief Michael Harrington and Deputy Inspector James Grant were also arrested for allegedly acting as “cops on call” for Reichberg and another wealthy de Blasio donor, Jona Rechnitz.
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http://ktla.com/2017/01/21/measles-outbreak-grows-in-l-a-s-orthodox-jewish-community-despite-californias-strict-new-vaccination-law/
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I would encourage all of you to send an email to the next Secretary of Education (probably Betsy De Vos) to complain about the inadequate secular education being received by many Ultra Orthodox students especially the boys. Google Chaim Levin and the education he never received. It is time for this scandal to be addressed at the highest levels.
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Anon, not only will DeVos complain about secular education but it looks like she has the ears of the ultra-Orthodox community which will be receiving vouchers.
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Betsy is a big on public money for private education. She comes from a very wealthy and politically powerful family and could care less about the proles.
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Unbelievable description of the Platinum fraud.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/The-fall-of-Black-Elk-Energy-10855360.php
The fall of Black Elk Energy began in New York City nearly a decade ago, with a meeting, a handshake and a loan.
Looking back, those were halcyon days for John Hoffman, founder of the Houston oil and gas company – before an explosion tore through an offshore rig and killed three workers, before federal investigators accused the hedge fund that made the loan of bilking investors, and before one of his top executives turned on him.
Hoffman, forced out of Black Elk in 2014, is now at the helm of a new company, and barely keeping the doors open. Black Elk is bankrupt and facing criminal charges in a federal case awaiting trial. And Hoffman’s one-time backer, Platinum Partners, is under federal indictment, accused of pillaging Black Elk and the hedge fund’s investors.
Last month, federal investigators arrested six Platinum executives and the man who replaced Hoffman as CEO, alleging they overvalued Black Elk’s assets, concealed “severe cash flow problems,” extracted high management fees and illegally diverted to Platinum more than $95 million owed to creditors holding Black Elk’s bonds. Platinum attorneys did not return calls seeking comment.
“I didn’t think (Platinum) had the guts to take it all,” Hoffman said in an interview. “I thought they’d take a large share. Ends up they took it all.”
The rise and fall of Black Elk Energy highlights the risks of the oil and gas business, which demands piles of cash that can quickly vanish through bad luck, bad planning, bad management or all three. It also reveals a shadow banking system that lends at double-digit interest rates to firms desperate for capital and has few qualms about gutting companies when they don’t perform.
BLACK ELK TIMELINE
MONEY TRAIL
2003 Investment manager Mark Nordlicht starts the hedge fund Platinum Partners in New York.
2007 Engineer John Hoffman and a partner open Black Elk Energy in Houston.
2008 Hoffman and partner fly to New York looking for capital; meet Platinum executives.
2009 Black Elk buys 35 oil fields on 71,000 acres from the Houston company W&T Offshore for $30 million, the first major purchase of many to come.
2011 Black Elk ends year with 240 oil production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico on 300,000 acres, producing about 14,500 barrels of oil and gas per day.
2012 Workers welding on a company platform in the Gulf ignite fuel vapors, leading to a string of exploding tanks and killing three.
2013 Black Elk signs drilling contracts worth about $90 million, but Platinum reneges on promises to send capital and Black Elk can’t pay the contractors.
2014 Renaissance Offshore, a Houston production company, buys Black Elk oil fields for $170 million; Platinum engineers a bondholders vote, federal investigators say, that diverts $95 million in proceeds to Platinum rather than contractors and bondholders.
2015 Federal prosecutors file involuntary manslaughter and other charges stemming from the Gulf explosion against Black Elk and contractor Grand Isle Shipyards. Black Elk files for bankruptcy.
2016 The U.S. attorney of the Eastern District of New York announces the indictment of six Platinum executives and one Black Elk executive, alleging they overvalued Black Elk assets, concealed “severe cash flow problems,” extracted high management fees and illegally diverted to Platinum money owed to bondholders.
Hoffman now says he had no idea of the financial disaster he was walking into when he flew from Houston to New York in 2008 and made a deal with Platinum. He thought he had found a deep-pocketed partner to fuel his vision for Black Elk at a time when loans were hard to come by. Even after disaster struck an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico, Platinum seemed to have the money and confidence to right Black Elk and put it back on a path to success.
But one day in 2014, Hoffman got suspicious pretty quickly.
Knocking on doors
The following account is based on interviews, financial filings and court records in civil and criminal cases:
Hoffman started Black Elk in 2007, raising money from private investors and using the cash to buy shallow-water oil fields in the Gulf for bottom-barrel prices from companies that no longer wanted them. Black Elk reworked the old wells with updated technology and boosted production.
Not a year later, the U.S. economy crashed, and oil prices with it. In late 2008, Hoffman and co-founder James Hagemeier flew to New York City to nail down capital. Over the course of two months, they knocked on the doors of at least 50 investment firms.
“It was a tough time to look for funds,” Hoffman said.
Finally, a middleman suggested the two meet the executives of the New York hedge fund Platinum Partners.
Platinum was founded in 2003 by Mark Nordlicht, who started as a young trader in the pits of the New York Cotton Exchange and opened two other investment firms before Platinum. He and Platinum gained a reputation for investing in risky companies and returning double-digit profits for investors.
Platinum offered Black Elk two loans together worth about $50 million – at 20 percent interest. But Platinum’s business model didn’t just loan money to desperate companies. The loans came with “kickers,” or clauses that gave Platinum growing ownership stakes in the firms over the lives of the loans.
“We were new and so small,” Hoffman recalled. “We didn’t draw much interest from the bigger players. Platinum seemed like a good fit.”
In 2009, Black Elk began a buying spree with Platinum’s cash, later supplemented by $150 million raised in a bond sale. By 2011, it owned leases on 300,000 acres in the Gulf of Mexico that produced about 14,500 barrels of oil and gas per day, according to securities filings.
“All I know was when we had an acquisition, Mark Nordlicht said, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ ” Hoffman said. “And he always had the money.”
By 2012, Black Elk, with a market value that Platinum estimated at nearly $300 million, was the largest asset in Platinum’s most successful fund, then valued at $700 million. Then it all unraveled.
In November 2012, workers welding on a Black Elk platform ignited fuel vapors, leading to a string of exploding tanks. The explosion killed three workers, injured at least two others and spilled hundreds of gallons of oil into the Gulf.
The fall out was immediate for Black Elk’s finances. Oil production fell. Legal fees mounted. (In 2015, federal prosecutors filed involuntary manslaughter and other criminal charges against Black Elk and contractor Grand Isle Shipyards, which both pleaded not guilty. Hoffman was not charged individually.)
BUSINESS
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Black Elk’s lenders reduced lines of credit and demanded more collateral. Black Elk started selling assets to raise cash.
Still, in December 2012, Hoffman flew to New York to present Black Elk’s growth strategy to Nordlicht and another Platinum executive, David Levy. Platinum promised as much as $120 million in capital for the company’s 2013 drilling campaign, Hoffman said, and Black Elk signed drilling contracts worth about $90 million with energy services companies.
Four months later, Platinum reneged on its pledge, leaving Black Elk unable to pay the contractors.
“It was just such a deep hole,” Hoffman said. “We couldn’t dig out of it.”
‘This is code red’
By the start of 2014, Black Elk had a new chief financial officer, Jeffrey Shulse, a lawyer and accountant whom Hoffman had hired a few years earlier to run a well-plugging company created by Black Elk. Platinum pushed Hoffman hard to make Shulse the CFO of Black Elk, Hoffman said.
Shulse wanted Hoffman out of the company. He wouldn’t comment for this story but said in a court deposition that Black Elk was ineptly managed, spending money it didn’t have on luxuries like boats, helicopters and cigar rooms at the office. Hoffman began secretly tracking and reading Shulse’s every email, Shulse said in the deposition; Shulse hired investigators to see if Hoffman had bugged his office.
Black Elk was by then effectively insolvent, federal investigators said.
Platinum, however, owned a $98 million stake in Black Elk, about 76 percent of the company, according to Hoffman’s files. And Platinum had a plan to get as much money back from the sinking oil company. It ordered Shulse to find a buyer willing to pay $170 million for Black Elk’s seven most valuable oil fields.
Shulse, meanwhile, was secretly trying to get Hoffman’s job. In March 2014, Shulse sent an email to Levy asking to take over as Black Elk CEO – and, according to the indictment, get paid $1 million from sales of the Black Elk’s assets.
“I want to be aligned with Platinum and friends of Platinum,” Shulse wrote in an email seized by investigators. “What’s good for them is good for me.”
Shulse found a buyer, the Houston production company Renaissance Offshore, for the Black Elk holdings. But Platinum still had a problem. The terms of Black Elk’s bonds required the company to pay off bondholders before it did anything else with the money.
Platinum was having its own problems. No longer generating double-digit returns, investors were pulling out money, and Platinum was barely able to pay redemption requests to investors, according to the indictment. Failure to cash in on Black Elk assets would “be the end of the fund,” Nordlicht wrote in an email. “This is code red,” he later said.
By May 2014, Platinum executives decided they had to persuade bondholders to let Black Elk use the sale proceeds for other purposes than paying off the bonds. And that change required a vote of the bondholders.
Hoffman didn’t like the move. But he didn’t oppose it, either. What bondholder “with half a brain,” Hoffman thought, would agree to give up his rights?
Platinum, again, had it figured out. It began buying Black Elk bonds – so that it could vote to pay itself, according to the indictment.
Platinum executives leaked information about Black Elk’s finances, driving down the value of the bonds, which they then bought at healthy discounts, federal prosecutors alleged. By April 2014, Platinum owned $99 million of the original $150 million in bonds, but concealed its ownership, investigators said, by selling all but $18 million to four investment funds that Platinum controlled.
With Platinum and its entities holding most of the bonds, the proposal to spend the cash from the oil field sales as the company saw fit was easily approved.
Ripping TVs off walls
On Aug. 18, 2014, Platinum sent an email to Shulse directing him to wire $70 million to Platinum. Two days later, Black Elk sent another $25 million from the Renaissance sales to Platinum.
The next Monday, Hoffman showed up at Black Elk. The doors were locked and office vacated, he said, and he had to call the building superintendent to get in. What was left of the company had moved in with Shulse’s well service company, which was by then also controlled by Platinum.
Not a week later, Shulse, now CEO, held something of a yard sale in the old office. Afterwards, former Black Elk employees said they went back inside the building. Computers, refrigerators and office furniture were all gone. Trash littered the floor. TVs yanked out of the walls, mounts and all, left fist-sized holes in the drywall.
“What a disgraceful way to go out,” Hoffman said.
By then, Black Elk had laid off about 100 workers, most of its staff.
On Sept. 11, 2014, Platinum authorized Shulse to pay himself a $275,000 bonus. Platinum executives, meanwhile, were paying themselves as well, according to the indictment. From 2012 to 2015, even as Black Elk crashed and Platinum scraped for cash, executives consistently told investors the fund was returning double-digit profits, justifying charges of as much as 20 percent in management and incentive fees, or $111 million in total over the four years, federal authorities alleged.
Many of Black Elk’s contractors were never paid. In August 2015, some filed a petition to liquidate Black Elk through Chapter 7 bankruptcy and use the proceeds to pay creditors. By the following June, Platinum didn’t have enough cash to pay investors trying to pull their money out the Platinum fund.
On Dec. 19, the U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of New York announced the indictment of seven on fraud and conspiracy charges: Platinum executives Uri Landesman, Joseph Sanfilippo, Joseph Mann, Daniel Small, Levy and Nordlicht as well as Shulse. They all pleaded not guilty.
U.S. Attorney Robert L. Capers, whose office investigated the case, estimated that investors in Platinum’s fund lost $1 billion.
Shulse’s attorney, F. Andino Reynal, said Shulse was told what to do by Platinum.
“He didn’t commit a crime here,” Reynal said. “I’m very confident that once the jury has heard all the facts, they’ll determine he’s not guilty.”
Hoffman’s hands still shake when talking about Platinum. His cheeks still redden. The scandal has hamstrung his new company, P3 Petroleum, which can’t raise money to grow. The company pumps about 50 barrels a day and employs seven workers.
“We’ve been going at it for more than two years now,” Hoffman said. “We don’t have a lot to show for it.”
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